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Cambridge University Press 0521842344 - The Encyclopedia of Melbourne Edited by Andrew Brown-May and Shurlee Swain Excerpt More information A Abattoirs metropolitan premises. Their deterioration brought obsoles- cence. The closure in 1977 of the Flemington abattoirs, and of Angliss, all but ended central metropolitan slaughtering. Melbourne’s butchers commonly slaughtered livestock on JOHN LACK their premises, until parliament and Melbourne City Council confined slaughtering to public slaughterhouses (abattoirs), first (1849) below Batmans Hill on the Yarra Abbotsford River, and from 1861 at Flemington on the Saltwater (Maribyrnong) River. Arguing that shops and markets had to be supplied quickly and regularly with fresh meat in the (3067, 4 km E, Yarra City) warmer Australian climate, butchers resisted what they In 1838, when Collingwood land was first offered for sale, a termed ‘civic interference’, and objected to abattoir fees, handful of pastoralists, solicitors and merchants purchased road tolls and the distance to Flemington. They were swiftly 25-acre (10 ha) blocks and established rural retreats along accommodated by municipal abattoirs, erected from 1861 in the western banks of the Yarra River. John Orr built an arc stretching along the Yarra from Collingwood to Abbotsford, named after a ford used by the Abbot of Williamstown, and in 1870 only one-third of Melbourne’s Melrose Abbey in Scotland, and thus gave the area its meat was being supplied from Flemington. eventual name. Other early owners of ‘out-of-town’ estates Public abattoirs gave control to lessees and specialist were Captain William Lonsdale and Andrew and Georgiana slaughterers who, laxly supervised, simply concentrated the McCrae, who called their home Mayfield. One version of the nuisances. While waste (blood and offal) from the premises Aboriginal name for the area was Carran-Carranulk, after of butchers who defied the law went into street channels, the carran or prickly myrtle. Richard Goldsbrough built The that from public abattoirs drained directly to the rivers and Rest and Edward Curr, the chief agent for the Van Diemen’s Port Phillip Bay, and that from private slaughterhouses on Land Co., built St Helier’s. the outskirts of suburbia discharged to creeks (see rivers While much of 1850s Collingwood was subdivided into and creeks), sandpits and quarries. The droving of stock tiny housing allotments, blocks by the river remained along suburban streets caused local nuisances to house- largely intact. Alongside the comfortable houses, the first holders, but smells from filthy riverside abattoirs and their of a number of noxious trades was established by Peter attendant noxious trades were carried by northerly and Nettleton, who opened a wool-scouring and fell-mongering westerly winds into Melbourne’s salubrious suburbs, and the business. Other wool scourers, tanners, abattoirs and tallow tidal rivers delivered solid wastes to the city’s front door. works followed, becoming a source of river and air ‘Meat three times a day’ was a proud colonial boast, but pollution. In addition, nightsoil collected from Collingwood Marvellous Melbourne was suffocating in the effluence of backyards during the 1860s was often illegally dumped into its own affluence. the Yarra at Abbotsford. From the 1870s numerous parliamentary inquiries In 1863 the Sisters of the Good Shepherd established an wrestled with the issues of public nuisance and sanitation. asylum for ‘fallen’ women in Abbotsford House and the More stringently regulated by the Board of Public Health neighbouring property, St Helier’s. Over the next two decades from the late 1880s, suburban abattoirs declined in number. they also cared for wards of the state, juvenile offenders and Increasingly the eastern and south-eastern suburbs were convent girls, who tended the large vegetable gardens, parts of supplied from abattoirs at Oakleigh, Mulgrave (1909) and which became the Collingwood Children’s Farm. Box Hill (1910), but vested interests (rural stockowners and Brewing (see brewers and brewing) was a local tradition, city-based meat processors) blocked attempts to relocate to consolidated in 1903 when the Melbourne Co-operative the city’s western fringe the ever-growing Flemington Brewery was established by hotel interests concerned at the abattoirs and their attendant Newmarket saleyards. Meat rising cost of beer produced by established breweries. This exporting had boomed in the 1860s and did again from the brewery was absorbed into the Carlton & United Group 1880s. The early meat-preserving works were congregated in 1925 and the Abbotsford Brewery became the major along the Saltwater River, and their successors, which also production centre for Carlton & United Breweries. exported frozen meat, located themselves in the inner A reproduction of the Skipping Girl sign is erected on western suburbs at Newport (public and private freez- Victoria Street, and Dights Falls are located nearby on the ing works), Footscray (Angliss Meatworks, 1905), and Yarra River. Dights Paddock was adjacent vacant land Brooklyn (Borthwicks). Eventually, efficient refrigerated owned by the Dight family from 1838 to 1878; most of it road transport, country killing, the growing live sheep was eventually purchased by Collingwood Council, which export trade and more stringent export standards created a turned it into a recreation ground that became Victoria Park, cycle of declining profitability and investment in the older former home of the Collingwood Football Club. 1 © Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 0521842344 - The Encyclopedia of Melbourne Edited by Andrew Brown-May and Shurlee Swain Excerpt More information In the 1930s many residential streets in Abbotsford were Aboriginal artefacts have emerged in Central Melbourne, labelled as slum pockets, with innumerable tiny houses though most Aboriginal products come from other States crowded into narrow streets and rights-of-way, and after rather than from local Aboriginal people. World War II many houses were replaced by factories. GAYE SCULTHORPE Abbotsford experienced moderate gentrification from the 1980s. JILL BARNARD Aboriginal Child-Care Agency Aberfeldie A Koorie community organisation which oversees place- (3040, 9 km NW, Moonee Valley City) ments for Aboriginal children in need of alternative care, A western pocket of Moonee Ponds and Essendon, on high Aboriginal Child-Care Agency (ACCA) was founded by ground overlooking the Maribyrnong River from the Mollie Dyer in 1976. It worked initially through the north, Aberfeldie is a small residential suburb with large Victorian Aboriginal Legal Aid Service but became a areas of parks and reserves. James Robertson purchased separate organisation in 1978, when its right to be consulted Crown land here in 1845 and gave his house its Scottish was recognised by the State Department of Community name. When the Aberfeldie Estate was first offered for sale Welfare Services. Committed to asserting the ‘normality’ of by subdivision in the 1880s, scattered substantial houses Aboriginal family structures in order to reverse insensitive appeared. Further attempts to sell blocks continued into the welfare intervention and the over-representation of 20th century. By the 1920s local residents had prevailed on Aboriginal children in care, ACCA runs family support the Essendon Council to purchase a large area by the river as programs and administers Link-Up services for individuals recreation space. By then Aberfeldie was populous enough removed from their families in the past. SHURLEE SWAIN to become Essendon’s fourth ward and to need a state primary school of its own. JILL BARNARD Aboriginal Community 2 Aboriginal artefacts Elders Service This aged care service was established by the Koorie Artefacts made by Aboriginal people in the Melbourne community to care for elders previously isolated in hospitals region consist of ancient objects of stone and bone; wood, and other institutions. Planning began in 1987 in response bone and fibre objects surviving from the 19th century; to discussion about the problems faced by older people in and contemporary artefacts made for sale. Non-portable the local community. Led by Gunditjmara elder Aunty artefacts such as scarred trees are also found in situ in various Iris Lovett-Gardiner, the group secured Commonwealth locations around the metropolitan region. Government funding to establish a 24-bed hostel in East The artefacts surviving from the pre-colonial period are Brunswick designed and operated in accordance with mainly stone implements of various kinds. These have been Aboriginal cultural principles. Aboriginal Community retrieved from many metropolitan sites. Stone for making axes Elders Service (ACES) also administers Home Care packages was an important item of trade. Stone from the Mount in the Koorie community. William quarry at Lancefield, just north of Melbourne, was SHURLEE SWAIN traded extensively in south-eastern Australia. Stone tools were used to grind seeds, to make weapons, and for scraping and cutting. Items made of organic materials such as wood, skin Aboriginal Melbourne and fibres are fragile and few of these have survived from the Melbourne region. Those that have survived (items such as a canoe, water vessels, clubs and shields) form an important part Initial relations between indigenous and settler people in the of Victorian Aboriginal heritage. Items from the period before Melbourne region were mixed, but combined to create a 1835 and later items

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